


making the most of the night

by orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Dan’s confused as to how the stomach-churning anxiety he had leading up to this night went out the window when this guy named Phil introduced himself.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 11
Kudos: 33





	making the most of the night

Dan knows he’s going to hate this. The very thought of attending a campus party with a group of strangers makes him light-headed, and not in the fun, good way it should. It’s not the party element of it, he’d done this shit all the time back when his old group of friends actually associated with him, but these people are strangers, and Dan after a few drinks is annoying as fuck. That’s coming from _himself_.

He’s trying his best. He’s still dealing with the heaps of trauma that high school spoon-fed him, and even though university is a new start, it’s hard to get past the shit that was drilled into him at such an impressionable age. He’s still finding himself, still trying to _like_ himself, when all he wants to do is be like every other first year: get drunk, fuck strangers, skip his morning lectures and laugh about it with his flatmates.

But he’s fucking awkward and shut off and he hates himself.

Dan has a small crisis while he’s getting ready for this party about how these three years probably won’t be the best of his life, but they'll be three years of him trying to fix the way he sees himself and maybe he'll come out of it a better person.

There’s a faint knock on his bedroom door. “Dan?” the voice says. “You ready?”

“Yeah, two seconds.”

Again, he hates himself. He can put that voice to a face, but like fuck does he remember their name. His actual flatmate, and he’s forgotten their name.

He decides alcohol is his best course of action from here. If he’s tipsy, he can loosen up a bit but still police his own behaviour. Maybe they’ll find him less weird and unsociable.

When he steps into the kitchen, a drink is being pressed into his hand. It’s clear and smells of nothing. He downs it.

He downs two more, makes small talk with a few of his flatmates, and makes an effort to smile.

*

Of course, the party is in a different accommodation, at the complete opposite end of campus. It’s fucking freezing, too, his thin denim jacket doing nothing to protect him from the cold air that feels like pinpricks in his skin.

He’s annoyed that the walk sobers him up a bit, because that means regular Dan is coming back, and he hates that Dan.

Hopefully the people there are drunk enough to feed him alcohol and make idiots of themselves so he's the tolerable one.

*

He smells weed the second he steps into the flat. There’s standard student party music blaring from shitty speakers, a group of people knocking back shots, and girls dancing against each other.

He spots a mess of bottles on a small table and pours himself a drink, assuming no one cares who drinks what, that they’re all going to get shitfaced anyway.

There’s _so_ much alcohol, it covers various tables and all the worktops, and Dan wonders if this place even has food. He cringes at the idea of alcohol and weed being the only things in his system, and silently congratulates himself on doing a proper food shop before settling in.

He eyes the place absently for lack of anything better to do and sees that the smoke alarms have been strategically wrapped in cling film. Very smart. The place might fucking poison them to death but at least they can smoke weed with no interruptions.

He shifts awkwardly, moves from room to room and stays close with the people he lives with. At one point, Dan spots a tall, lanky guy with a black fringe, huddled with some people by the balcony, a bright smile on his face.

Dan can’t stop looking, because this guy _looks_ like him. Not literally, but he has the haircut, the skinny jeans, the flashy studded belt. Dan feels oddly drawn to him, because he seems so familiar.

Whether it’s flatmates, group work or random parties, University forces you in with so many different kinds of people. Dan has yet to meet anyone here who he thinks he’d get along with. He hates to be presumptuous, but he looks at people all the time and thinks about how they would never get along with him on that level, and he knows they think the same way. It’s the way things are.

He goes for another drink and tries to ignore his nagging brain. He manages more small talk with his flatmates and some others who look just as uncomfortable as him. Even before he started uni, he’d tell himself that everyone is in the same boat, everyone is nervous and has been thrown in the deep end. He should find comfort in that, but instead he focuses on how well others adapt to new people and new surroundings and how pathetic he is in comparison.

A voice to his left snaps him out of his thoughts. “You okay?”

She’s pretty, short, and is using glow sticks as accessories.

“I’m good, yeah,” he says.

She frowns sweetly at him. “You zoned out.”

“Yeah, sorry, I do that,” he says awkwardly.

“You on anything?”

“Whatever’s in this cup.”

She barks out a laugh and leaves him to his own thoughts and vague company. It definitely wasn’t the worst interaction of his life, and he’s thankful she cut it short before he said anything to make a tit of himself.

*

The night drags along.

At some point, beer pong had been arranged in the kitchen and Dan had dipped right out of that one and found solace on the couch in the social area. The alcohol has him feeling sluggish and warm, but he’s nursing something sweet and it’s making him smile lazily.

When he takes another sip, the couch dips beside him.

“Beer pong not for you?” the voice asks.

Dan has to pick his head up, which suddenly feels too big for his body and force it to turn towards the sound of another human speaking at him. He recognises the mass of black hair, but the blue eyes are what have his attention now. They’re so _blue_.

His brain connects the dots, and he grins despite himself. It’s the guy!

“Thoroughly unhygienic,” Dan says. “I don’t want any kind of hepatitis invading my body.”

When the guy laughs, Dan feels the alcohol burning in his stomach. It’s a sweet sound, sweet like the Malibu and coke in Dan’s hand. The guy flicks his head to the side a few times to get the black strands out of his eyes, but mostly he smiles at Dan, which Dan likes.

“I’m Phil,” he says.

“Dan.”

Phil smiles warmly at him again. “I’ll admit I’m a lightweight and I don’t fancy making an idiot of myself in front of everyone. I’ll probably see them more often than not at other parties, and I can’t be known as that guy who takes off his shirt and dances provocatively.”

Dan tries and fails to hold back a fucking _giggle_. “Is that your usual thing?”

Phil laughs shyly. “I’ll be honest, when it is, I don’t remember. I just have very honest, very understanding friends.”

Dan feels equal parts jealous and coveted, because he wants to be Phil’s friend. Phil is nice, Phil is talking to Dan because he wants to. Phil looks like he could be Dan's friend.

“I talk a lot, I guess. Well, I talk a lot anyway,” it’s a lie. “Just. The alcohol gives me the kick up the ass. Lowers the inhibitions.”

“Like Natasha Bedingfield,” Phil offers.

Dan smiles into his cup. “Yeah, like Natasha Bedingfield.”

They talk back and forth about nothing and everything. Phil studies English, which surprises Dan. He would have said Media or something, from the first impression. There’s something so carefree about the way Phil carries himself that Dan simultaneously admires and envies. He’s confident, sociable, kind. He makes Dan feel important and wanted. He asks Dan about himself, and suddenly the weight of the alcohol doesn’t bother Dan, doesn’t hold him down and tell him to only speak with purpose.

He talks, and talks, and Phil listens.

“You’re interesting,” Phil tells him.

Dan has to force down the laugh in his throat, since Phil has the wrong idea. Phil’s the interesting one, the one keeping the conversation afloat with his questions and life anecdotes. Dan’s just happy to be talking to him.

“It’s all a lie,” Dan says dramatically. “It’s the Malibu, she has a lot to say.”

Phil laughs harder this time. Dan notices the way his tongue sticks out from his teeth, a smile so wide that Dan thinks he’s hallucinating, because that's for _him_. He feels warm and content. It’s bizarre, really. Dan’s confused as to how the stomach-churning anxiety he had leading up to this night went out the window when this guy named Phil introduced himself.

“Do you have any socials?” Phil asks. He pulls out his phone and loads up Facebook through a webpage.

“Yeah,” Dan says. “Dan Howell.” He spells out his surname for good measure.

Phil goes to his profile and hits ‘add friend’ without hesitation.

“You look nice here,” he tells him, referring to Dan’s profile picture.

Dan’s stomach flips warmly. “It’s cringeworthy,” he manages.

“Shut up,” Phil says. Dan’s very aware of how close Phil is to him now. The heat of his thigh seeping into Dan’s sets his nerves on fire, though the contact is also ridiculously comforting.

It feels incredibly intimate, and Dan has to pour the bucket of cold water over his own head and remind himself that they’re at a flat party which is also _public_. He tries to push away the thought of someone walking in here, seeing the two of them existing, and proceeding to abuse them with every gay slur they have in their arsenal. Dan’s taught himself to be prepared for that.

“Dan,” Phil says, “Are you having an internal crisis?”

Dan snaps his gaze to Phil. “Always.”

Phil hums thoughtfully, and Dan wants to tell him that _yes_ he is having a crisis, a big gay one, full of self-loathing and warmth in his chest because Phil is gorgeous and Phil is spending his precious time with him. And that’s not allowed, because Dan doesn’t deserve it.

“Dan,” he says again. “Can I kiss you?”

Dan’s vaguely aware of the word catatonia, and that it’s probably inappropriate under these circumstances, but that’s the only way he can describe his own body when Phil asks him that.

He swallows. Swallows again. Wills his body to fucking _react_.

“Yeah,” he blurts. “I mean, here?”

“Yeah,” Phil says. Like it’s the easiest fucking decision he’s ever made.

Dan does the quickest scan of the area humanly possible, sees no one within eyeshot, and looks right back at those gorgeous blue eyes. Phil pupils are bigger now, taking up most of the room, but Dan can still see that ring of blue. How the black of his hair makes it pop.

“Okay,” Dan says thickly, “Okay.”

Phil kisses how Dan imagined him kissing, soft yet firm, careful yet determined. But it’s so much more. He kisses like nothing Dan’s ever experienced before. He kisses him like they have all the time in the world, like there’s no goal to work towards. There’s a hand at Dan’s neck, the warmth of it making him shiver, bizarrely. Phil’s tongue is warm and soft when it sweeps against Dan’s, and Dan has to swallow down the whine that threatens to leave his throat at just how tentative Phil is with him.

When Phil pulls away slowly, Dan forgets words. Forgets standard bodily functions, like breathing. Phil’s smiling sweetly at him again with those pretty eyes. Dan wants to dedicate hours and hours to staring at them alone.

“You wanna leave?” Phil asks, voice lower than before.

“Yeah,” Dan says, doesn't even have to think about it.

He takes Phil’s hand. He doesn’t say goodbye to anyone, completely forgets that his flatmates are here and will probably be looking for him by the end of night when it’s time to leave. All those thoughts are pushed right to the back of Dan’s mind to make room for Phil.

The fresh air is sobering, and this time Dan likes that. Phil’s holding his hand, talking at him, and Dan smiles so hard it hurts his cheeks.


End file.
